


tough love

by callabang



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Insecurity, M/M, Nolan Patrick's Winnipeg Harem, POV Multiple, Philadelphia Flyers, Pre-Relationship, Wrestling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-09 06:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20848880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callabang/pseuds/callabang
Summary: Travis is not having a breakdown in Patty’s friend’s mom’s guest bathroom, because that would be, like, super pathetic.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've posted a chaptered fic in Hockey RPF! I'm interested to see if the experience is different. The second half will be up next week. Kudos and comments much appreciated.
> 
> I'd like to extend an especially big thanks to D. and Hattie for tolerating me online.

Travis is not having a breakdown in Patty’s friend’s mom’s guest bathroom, because that would be, like, super pathetic. He’s just sitting on the floor of Patty’s friend’s mom’s guest bathroom, curled up in a ball with his arms around his knees and taking shaky little breaths, and it’s actually, definitely not a breakdown, thank you very much. He just likes it down here.

Some guy knocks on the door, and then immediately tries the handle. Why do people bother knocking if they’re not going to wait for a response? Well, Travis has his fucking number, and the door is locked. No one’s coming into  _ this _ bathroom — not the asshole jiggling the handle, not Patty, and definitely not any of Patty’s dumb Winnipeg boyfriends, with their stupid outfits and their inside jokes and the casual way they touch Patty and make him laugh.

Maybe Travis is having a little bit of a breakdown.

The thing is, he  _ knows  _ he’s being a baby. All Patty’s friends are actually super nice guys, and he clearly likes hanging out with them. That’s half the reason he invited Travis to visit him during the offseason, so Travis could meet all his friends from home and get to know them a little bit. They’ve been nothing but cool to Travis, even though he just showed up to this house party in normal shorts and a sheep snapback and everybody else — even Patty, christ — is dressed like a character out of  _ The Breakfast Club _ . 

And, honestly, it’s cool to see Patty so comfortable. Half the time in Philly he’s still putting on the cool-and-aloof act, even with people like Provy who’ve known him for years. Fuck, the only reason he drops the act around Travis sometimes is because Travis just frankly does not leave him alone. And obviously he gets annoyed with Travis, like when he can’t stop rambling about something stupid when Patty’s trying to chill, or when he’s extra jittery on the plane after a tough loss, but Travis never thought it was, like, serious.

Now he’s just, y’know. Reconsidering.

Because, like, here in Winnipeg, Patty is practically a different person. All his friends are so touchy-feely, and he’s actually leaning into them, not just tolerating it like he does when Travis tries to bestow some physical affection. And he’s dancing to the music and singing along kind of loudly with no trace of self-consciousness, and he’s wearing a fanny pack and acting, like, goofy and weird. And obviously Travis knows that Patty has a goofy and weird streak! Travis is a Patty expert, frankly, and he’s seen Patty tipsy and cross-faded and high on adrenaline and ecstatic and pissed off beyond belief and deeply fucking sad, but he’s never seen Patty be this free with himself in a group setting. 

And like Travis said, he knows he’s being a baby. He knows he’s acting pathetic, because it should just be nice to see Patty feeling so at home here with all his old friends, feeling like he can be himself. But it’s hard not to think about how different that self is from the person Patty is in Philly — from the person Patty is with Travis — and wonder what exactly Travis has been thinking this whole time.

Travis scrubs a fist across his eyes and flips his phone around in his hands. He considers texting Lawson, maybe, just to do something about all the feelings rolling around in his chest, but then he thinks about what an embarrassing, sad-sack move it would be to complain about Patty kindly putting up with Travis and his constant mother-henning the past few years and decides against it. Mostly he just wants to get out of here, and to stop the montage of times he made Patty pay attention to him when Patty was clearly pissed that’s currently playing in technicolor in his head.

There’s another knock at the door, and the handle jiggles.  _ Jesus, what is with people?  _ Travis starts to think, but then Patty’s voice is drifting in through the cheap plywood.

“You good, Teeks? Tyler said you were up here.”

Fuck Tyler, honestly. Travis tries to pull himself together. 

“Yeah, I just don’t feel well,” he answers. Maybe he quickly googles “how to make it look like you haven’t been crying.” It’s whatever.

“Oh shit, dude, are you okay?” Patty asks, and tries the handle again. 

If Travis is good at anything, it’s acting like nothing’s wrong. He yanks open the door and flashes Patty a grin. “Yeah, I’m fine, just a stomach thing I think. I might actually head back?” He doesn’t let Patty get a good look at his face, just barrels out of the guest bathroom and gets a move on down the stairs. 

“Ok, I can call an uber—” Patty starts, but Travis cuts him off.

“No, no, it’s cool, I’ll call one. You should stay here, hang out with your bros. I’ll see you back at your place.”

He has his phone out and is loading up the app, but he can still tell that Patty is frowning from his voice alone. “I’m not gonna stay here while you go back to my house alone,” Patty says.

Travis has already ordered the car. It’ll be here in three minutes, thank god. 

“Why not, dude? It’s not like I’m going to be any fun. Hey, Tanner, tell Patty he should stay here and have a good time.” 

Tanner, who had been walking past, probably going to the kitchen to get a refill, pivots and slings an arm over Patty’s shoulders, pulling him in. Patty lets himself be pulled, although he still looks a little doubtful. It’s in the mouth.

“Patty, stay here and have a good time,” Tanner says obligingly. He’s wearing tiny sunglasses and a lime green bomber jacket. God, Travis hates him.

Patty’s looking like he wants to keep protesting, but Travis is a fucking expert. 

“The car’s gonna be here in two seconds, Patty, just gimme a key and tell me about your wild night in the morning.”

“Yeah, c’mon, dude, you can’t bail now. The night is young!” Tanner says. 

“Chop chop,” Travis adds, and thirty minutes later he’s laying very, very still on the air mattress in Patty’s childhood bedroom. He kind of wishes Patty was there.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here this is! I'm not, like, dazzled by the pacing but that's life I guess! Hope you enjoy :)

It’s two weeks into the season and TK is acting super weird. That’s pretty much standard for TK, honestly, and normally Nolan wouldn’t think much of it, but it’s been going on since he flaked out during his visit to Winnipeg and it’s kind of starting to wig Nolan out.

Speaking of which, Nolan still doesn’t really know what happened with all that. He was honestly kind of excited for TK to meet all his home friends — he usually feels like he lives in a different world during the off-season, a bubble of training and drinking in someone’s backyard and fielding TK’s constant stream of text messages about stupid shit. And, like, maybe it was silly of him, but he kind of thought TK and the guys would get along better? TK is basically the most social person he’s ever met, after all, and his home friends are usually pretty chill too. 

It just would have been nice if they’d liked each other. that’s all.

He’d been at the party, just drinking warm beer at Tanner’s mom’s house and talking about nothing, and then suddenly he’d realized he hadn’t seen TK in a while. He wasn’t in the yard or in the basement, and actually it turned out that no one had seen him in a while, and Nolan was just considering actually calling him on the phone like it was 1967 when Tyler grabbed him to tell him TK was having some kind of breakdown in the upstairs guest bathroom.

Nolan had taken the stairs two at a time. 

He’d knocked on the door all mentally prepared to deal with whatever shit was going on, but then TK had popped out acting normal. Or, like, not exactly normal, but close enough that Nolan couldn’t really call him out on it. And who knew, maybe TK really did just have a stomach thing. Nolan wasn’t gonna make a big deal out of it in front of everyone. And he really hadn’t wanted TK to go back by himself, but all the guys were there watching, and everyone kept telling him to stay, and before Nolan could even, like, process what was happening TK had snatched his keys and disappeared into an uber. The next morning was TK’s flight back home.

Nolan can’t help the sour feeling of disappointment that rises in his throat when he thinks about it.

He hoped it was just a fluke, but TK definitely texted him less for the rest of the off-season, and he deleted his burner instagram account, although that could have just been his old-man aversion to social media. And now they’re back in Philly, and TK is still acting weird. Like, he’s even more high energy than usual, just on all the time, but then as soon as practice is over he disappears off to...somewhere. At first Nolan was mildly offended that TK was hanging out with someone else, but now he’s pretty sure he’s just holed up in his apartment alone. 

TK hates being alone. 

Nolan had even tried being tactful and supportive, which is not particularly in character for him, but maybe TK was having a rough time and needed a friend, you know? But that hadn’t changed anything — every time Nolan tried to corner TK and ask him if everything was okay, TK just looked like a deer in the headlights and invented some excuse to leave as quickly as possible. It felt kind of shitty, actually, to be someone TK was basically fleeing from. 

Nolan just wants to know what’s going on.

So now it’s been two weeks since they returned to the city, and Nolan’s crossed from confused to worried to kind-of-pissed. That only sort of explains why he barges into TK’s apartment on a random Thursday night.

When he busts in there — well, when he unlocks the door with the key TK gave him in case he got locked out — TK is sitting on his sectional, staring glumly into space. He yelps and tumbles off the side when he sees Nolan looming in the doorway, scrambling to his feet looking a little wild around the eyes. 

“What the fuck, dude, you don’t knock?!” TK says.

Nolan crosses his arms. “You wanna tell me why you’re sitting here alone like a sad sack instead of bothering me in my apartment like you always do?” He doesn’t miss the way TK winces at that. “What the hell is going on?”

“Nothing is going on!” TK says defensively, like a liar. His face is bright red, and he looks… honestly, kind of embarrassed. 

“Stop lying to me and tell me why you’re so fucking sad all the time now!” 

“I’m not!” 

“You fucking are!”

“I’m  _ not.” _

Jesus, Nolan does not have the patience for this. He rounds the sectional and gets TK in a headlock easily enough, but TK is a stubborn dumbass so he actually tries to pry himself free even though Nolan is bigger, stronger, and exponentially more annoyed. They engage in a brief but heated wrestling match — Nolan is maybe yelling — until Nolan manages to pin TK to the carpet. He feels when TK stops fighting and goes limp underneath him. Nolan is definitely squashing him but at this point he cannot bring himself to care.

“Tell me what’s going on,” Nolan says. 

TK mumbles indistinctly into the carpet. Nolan catches about thirty percent of it, but it’s a thirty percent that involves "your other friends" and "probably really annoying you" and "just being dumb about it"

Nolan has no idea how to handle this. Since when does TK give a shit what other people think about it? And since when does he compare himself to Nolan’s other friends? 

“Hey, actually, what the fuck are you talking about? None of that is true.”

TK just kind of shrugs miserably. Somehow Nolan is both incredibly pissed off and incredibly worried at the same time.

He gives TK firm shake. He’s probably gonna have rugburn across his whole forehead tomorrow.

“I’m serious, asshole. I don’t know where the fuck you got the idea that I like those people better than you. Who do I talk to when shit gets fucked? Who do I hang out with literally all the time? Who makes sure I get to practice on time? It’s you, idiot! You’re my best fucking friend and you definitely don’t get to be a fucking martyr just because you got insecure at a Winnipeg house party!”

TK still hasn’t said anything, or even moved beyond thrashing a little when Nolan got to the best friend part. Nolan keeps mashing TK’s face into the carpet until he stills again. He has all the leverage here.

By the end, they’re both panting, loud in the quiet of TK’s apartment. TK is completely still underneath him.

“Don’t be such an idiot. I love you, okay? Jesus Christ,” Nolan says. His voice is a little hoarse from the yelling.

“Okay, okay! I won’t. Sorry,” TK says. He sounds winded, probably from Nolan sitting on his torso but also maybe a little but from being so thoroughly and aggressively affirmed.

“You better be,” Nolan says and hauls TK up and over to the sectional. “We’re watching a fucking movie, sit down.”

TK does, a little gingerly. He’s quiet for the movie, glancing at Nolan out of the corner of his eye and occasionally touching the places where Nolan slammed him down, where he’s probably a little tender.

When the movie ends, TK is still looking shell-shocked, so Nolan shoves him down on one half of the sectional.

“We’re going to bed,” he tells TK, who nods hesitantly. It’s weird that he’s so fucking quiet, but Nolan’s never really yelled at him like that before. Maybe he needs a little time to recover. Nolan tosses TK a blanket and watches as he spreads it over himself, then goes to switch off the light. The room goes dark, lit only by the orange glow of the city outside.

“Just talk to me next time, okay?” Nolan says into the darkness, then inches back over to the sectional to make himself comfortable. He settles in, closing his eyes, and he’s pretty sure he hears TK say “Yeah, okay. I will, Patty,” before he falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Later, when they start dating, TK is casually like, "Oh hey, remember that time you manhandled me and pinned me to the carpet? Circumstances were not great but on the other hand, have you considered, doing that but in a sexy way,,,,"

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/callabang_)!


End file.
